Really nice set of vintage Vega images from Alaska. You could find a lot of special equipment there: skis, floats, special winter covers, adjustable engine cowling for cold weather operations, even special fur covers for the wings

Another set of pictures from digital library. On page 5, high resolution photos of Winnie Mae from 1940 - all details available for the Vega wheel struts, wheel pants with all inspection covers for tire inflation and bolts. Also zoom on intercoolers.

There's an amazing photograph of the cockpit in the gallery you linked. One of the best I've seen and from what I can tell, this is an ordinary Vega, without any major modifications. What you see is the same throttle quadrant you see in our current built.

Hmmm. I don't see the curious B forward-and-back knob in the middle. But it does show 4 knobs and the aircraft clearly has a ground adjustable prop. So that bottom must be the mysterious B, just like the current version, as you say. Very strange.

No luck for me with Swiss museum of transport
Their Orion 9c has 3-lever setup and Wright's engine. Something which looked as 4-lever at some angle turned to be 3 lever quadrant (spark, throttle, mixture) + lever for wobble pump which is on the left-hand side on this plane.

NC7952 is a Lockheed Vega 5 (S/N 22; ATC #93) manufactured December 4, 1928 by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, CA. It left the factory with a Wasp CB engine (S/N 941) of 420-450HP. It was a 5-place airplane weighing 4,033 pounds gross. It was used by the manufacturer as a demonstrator in the east coast states for over a year, then it was purchased by Amelia Earhart on March 17, 1930.

She set two records and had a couple of accidents including one on August 25, 1930, at Langley Field, VA, when she "...fell backward through combination backrest/door in landing and aircraft went over on its back. Aircraft sent to Detroit plant of Detroit Aircraft Corporation. Wing, landing gear and tail surfaces repaired."

Those repairs included replacing the damaged fuselage with the one from Vega #68 and an upgrade to a 7-place Vega 5B under ATC 227. The ship was painted deep red, with gold trim. A new P&W engine (S/N 3812) was installed in 1932, and an "NR" registration was issued to Earhart. She then flew it from Harbor Grace, New Foundland to a bog in Ireland May 20-21, 1932.

Interesting note in the file: "Near accident 10/22/32 involving a Braniff Vega. Earhart was landing in crosswind and Braniff pilot got over her somehow."

The airplane was sold on June 27, 1933 to the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA for $7,500 (with obsolete Wasp engine S/N 888) and then transferred to National Air & Space Museum in 1966.